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While this is a topic that can pass some time in discussion, I think in reality there are a whole lot of bigger fish to fry than this one. So I'm gonna quit carping about it.

I tend to agree.

While I don't necessarily like the term, I am not going to let it interfere with getting to know someone or getting a hot fuck. I do try to explain how it isn't an appropriate usage of the word when discussing HIV. However at least they ask or let a person know that they are thinking about HIV and STD's, giving you the opportunity for a learning experience. Perhaps in more ways than one.

Woods

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"Let us give pubicity to HV/AIDS and not hide it..." "One of the things destroying people with AIDS is the stigma we attach to it." Nelson Mandela

"clean" is used in French to say that someone has taken a shower, for example, and it's not used to say "sti free", I'm sure there is another term for it, but this was not the question. I didn't know the origin of it and that has been explained.

What I feel from the answers is that it's a recognized term, long used, and that apart from telling someone using it that it's offensive there is nothing else we can do, we just live with it.

People who lie about their status have zero credibility on this forum. I am just saying. Plilly, please forward me the .pdf or URL

More to the point, people who say one thing (and stridently so) on these forums yet espouse a totally different viewpoint on other web sites are hypocrites, and should not be shocked when this is uncovered.

Just saying.

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"Many people, especially in the gay community, turn to oral sex as a safer alternative in the age of AIDS. And with HIV rates rising, people need to remember that oral sex is safer sex. It's a reasonable alternative."

and for the record, i'm not trying to be snippy. just not feeling well. it's just suprising to me that this thread would have as much length as this. a lot of it seems a bit, well...masturbatory. feels like we're at the keys here...mostly just stroking away. and without much in the way of poppers to speak of.

and for the record, i'm not trying to be snippy. just not feeling well. it's just suprising to me that this thread would have as much length as this. a lot of it seems a bit, well...masturbatory. feels like we're at the keys here...mostly just stroking away. and without much in the way of poppers to speak of.

If you were a Will and Grace fan, you might remember an episode where Grace was dating a character played by Woody Harrelson. There was a scene where they had just come from getting tested and Grace made the comment "we just found out we're clean so now we're going to get dirty". And it got a big laugh. That line has always stayed with me because I was really taken aback when I heard it. Up until that point I had considered it really offensive to equate being clean with being neg but then I heard it on the most popular gay-friendly sit-com on TV and it made me wonder if it was OK it say it. I just wonder how many other gay men, both neg and poz, had the same thought when they heard it.

Online I don't find the generic "clean" much more offensive than disease free. That's all they are asking. I still say most (including you ) won't pass up a hot fuck even if they ask if you are clean. Maybe when you're snuggling in the afterglow you might whinge and say it hurts your feelings, but not before.

Don't bet on it, Hal. I find nothing more offensive and de-hornying than being asked if I'm clean. They get an appropriate serve and I move on. I actually had a hooker once asked me if I was clean, which I found slightly ironic given what we were arranging to set up.

Personally, I'd rather have someone show their ignorance/insensitivity. Helps me to move on without so much time wasted. If I have the energy, I spare some reflection and education for the poor soul. If not, they're their own education control board.

It was also bandied about by the same member who brought us "Blowjob Ninja" if I'm not mistaken, and is part of the verbiage of that whole scene.

Is it offensive? Yeah. Does it offend me when I hear it spoken? Yeah. Do I slap down a WW in AII when it rears its judgmental little head in casual usage? Sure.

But does this subject require a multi-page thread to dissect?

People who use the "C" word to mean HIV- are no more intentionally offensive than I am when I use "neg", which as was once pointed out to me sounds uncomfortably like a racial pejorative by some hyper-sensitive with his own axe to grind.

On my Mancunt profile I have a line that reads: "When I read D&D free, I tamp out my cigarette and wonder if he'll settle for three out of five."

Logged

Blessed with brains, talent and gorgeous tits.

The revolutionary smart set reads The Spin Cycle at least once every day.

It's funny to me how a word can mean different things to people. The word clean never meant anything sexual to me. I always looked at it in terms of drugs/alcohol or the condition of one's person or their housekeeping skills.

I see many ads from people saying they're "clean". I see a lot of posts from "Am I Infected" saying they're "clean" or someone was supposed to be "clean".

I'm wondering what this term is doing to us, to which extent. It seems to me that it is extremely damaging, and I'm not sure where it comes from. What can we do to stop people using "clean" to say that they're not HIV positive?

Milker.

I am sure everyone here is constantly reminded that we are not "clean", are "infected" with a generally sexually transmitted disease (using needles for recreation doesn't improve our standing much either), and for the most part not part of the "innocent victims of AIDS" that deserve our support and efforts of society.

OK...So do something about it. A guy I had the hots for (for years) asked me home one day. He blurted out that he was "clean". I told him I was positive, didn't consider myself "dirty" and was offended. And we didn't have "make up" sex either. I am sure he never forgot the conversation. He's actually a very nice guy.

As gay men (this is a harder issue for straight poz), it is absolutely ridiculous that we tolerate "disease free" or "clean" and other terms in our sexual and social culture. I challenge (usually in private) these words whenever they are spoken and quite often when they are written. I run Posts in Craigslist that challenge notions of "disease free" nonsensical sero-sorting (lying will get you what you want), not to mention all the fears of oral sex and HIV. I use the sex angle first. I explain the differences between this or that STD. Then the failed "sorting" and weeding out of POZ in futile game of self delusion and staying "negative". I even run fake (satiric) ads that mix the worst of everything with heavy doses of ignorance and racism. When someone writes "me" I let them know how and why they've been fooled. No one has ever "flagged" one of these ads. Maybe it's a neo-"Situationalist" (they had some folks up North I think) response to cultural vapidness and failed unity. This is what I do. I don't count on "professional leaders" to speak for me. I don't count on them to fight our battles. No, "at least we're at the table" political compromise for me. It's better to lose and make a point sometimes. Especially when someone else is watching. Parroting our oppressors is so common we hardly notice it.

Carol Anne: Uh-huh. Diane: Do you see them? Carol Anne: Uh-uh. Do you? Diane: Uh-uh. Tangina: This house is clean. Diane: You were saying about poltergeist.

Poor Phillly,

It saddens me that he spends so much time and emotional energy on me. Perhaps it is bitterness or jealousy. I don't know. I still have a meaning full existence. I work, make excellent money, and contribute to society. I don't ruminate on designer duds I wore decades ago, as if to prove that I was once somebody. Because today I am someone. I too will die of this horrible disease, but my last and most precious moments will be directed at making the lives of others better. Of improviving the human condition. While he watches re-runs of Match Game and the Hollywood Squares.

Philly never really bothered with developing his mind. It was always about the right clothes, and the right body type. Those things never last. Sadly the only thing of permanence in his life is HIV. The one love who never left him.

So go ahead and attack those who have achieved a little more. Be a bittler simpleton on the backside of those who have suffered greatly so that others may suffer less.

Thanks Carolann, I see you fixed your proxy server keyboard issues you were encountering at that public library. Now, why IS it that we NEVER see you in the Positive Women's section here? Huh? Don't be so koi with your answer!

I think that perhaps the switch from psychotropic meds ot anti-psychotic med would be a good choice. Tha Borderline Personality Disorder with that hefty case of full blown AIDS has to he a bitch.

"One is the lonliest number that you will ever know.....

Enjoy welfare, you designer wanna be diva!!!

Thanks Rob. I appreciate your medical suggestions and will keep them in mind. Personal attacks about designer clothing are one thing, but when you start lobbing cruise missiles about teh AIDS on an HIV web site let's just say that you're really showing your colors and scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Oh, and you've also just attacked EVERY OTHER board member living with AIDS and on disability indirectly with that comment. I'm sure, speaking for many other of my fellow sufferers, that they greatly appreciate your astute commentary.

Philly, I know you think Carolann and Koi are one and the same, but don't you think if we had one shred of evidence to back that up, we would have done something about it? It's not your job to jump on people when you think they are a sock puppet. Tell us your concerns instead, via the Report button, instead of flaming in the forum.

Carolann, I'm also giving you a time out because you've flamed in two threads so far today. I'm putting an end to that right now.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

If I may be bold enough to say... I believe the term "clean" has more recognition with a 12 step program. As in a few years ago, I ran into an old friends younger sister. After exchanging pleasantries, she said, her brother has been "clean and sober" for 20 years. This was an impressive statement to me as I remember the first time, he walked into a meeting and introduced himself as an addict. The following week, another old friend came to the same meeting and introduced herself as an addict. He has a house, a wife and a family and she is a newspaper reporter, is married and also has a family.

In my personal opinion, these two people and thousands of others who have taken the time to work their steps, have the right to use the term "clean". For those of us living with HIV, I say we all took a shower that day Have the best dayMichael

I should probably add that he has seen his girlfriends younger sister pinned in a burning car and die before their eyes. A few years later, an accident with his own sister where he saw her death as well.

Hate it when people say they are clean, well so am I. I take a bath each day, brush teeth, and all the good grooming stuff. Do they even know if they are really clean in their definition of the word? Did they have an std screening right after their last trick or whatever you would like to call it? I agree it is usually narrow minded people who live in a little world all by themselves who think they are clean of everything. When you even dig at some of these people you find many use drugs or whatever else. Just think the world would be a nicer place if people would start to look at people for who they are and not what they have.

Well in the sense of drugs, I guess I would be dirtier than a mofo but I'm not called Queen Tokelove or The Green Queen for nothing..... Just trying to lighten things up in here. But then since some folks got a lil vacation, I guess I'm a little bit late.... Lighten, oops I mean Light Up!!!!!!

I see many ads from people saying they're "clean". I see a lot of posts from "Am I Infected" saying they're "clean" or someone was supposed to be "clean".

I'm wondering what this term is doing to us, to which extent. It seems to me that it is extremely damaging, and I'm not sure where it comes from. What can we do to stop people using "clean" to say that they're not HIV positive?

Milker.

Milker, I don't know which term I dislike the most. "clean" or "that's so gay"